narcissism...my journey thus far.

it's so fucking hilarious that my mom has written me off as having NPD ( narcissistic personality disorder ) which is what she has.
the thing with this disorder is that because the narcissist mirrors everything on those around her, it's often difficult, even for professionals, to distinguish who is the perpetrator and who is the victim.
even my dad has difficulty because everything bad i say about my mom is almost identical to everything bad she says about me. it's like we are mirrors of each other.

(and because my mom will always runs to my dad and says all this FIRST ( i never run to my dad and tell him anythng about my troubles with my mom unless he brings up what she said to him), it is always *I* who looks like the copycat. plus she is "The Mom", so what she says goes before what i say.)

but just say i do have it for sake of argument.... and i will admit to having a few of narcisistic tendencies because how could i NOT have at least SOME having grown up with narcissist parents? i mean, look, i have a freaking cam on me 24/7 for the past 6 years. i admit i can be a bit self absorbed :) but it's because growing up with a narcissist, my existence was invalidated and there was no separation between myself and my mom. what she thought was transferred on to me. but i'm a pretty stubborn strong willed double aries with leo rising, with a strong personality to boot...so i think i weathered it pretty well and came out pretty intact, nonetheless.

i think perhaps most of us have narcissistic tendencies to some degree or another as this society is pretty narcissistic. and it's hard to be unscathed.

contrary to popular belief, narcissism doesn't mean that you love yourself. narcissists actually have very low self worth.

but ok...so just say i do have it. where did i get it?
you get it from your parents. so by that sheer fact, if my mom thinks i have it...then where on earth did it come from, MOM? hello?
her logic is so flawed an her denial SO deep.
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this is basically her in a nutshell:
narcissism:
an obvious self-focus in interpersonal exchanges
a lack of psychological awareness
difficulty with empathy
problems distinguishing the self from others
hypersensitivity to any slights or imagined insults
vulnerability to shame rather than guilt
(taken from here:

http://www.psychotherapy.com.au/august00/featart2.html )
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i think you would agree i have empathy ( at least i would hope )
i think you would agree i do not have a lack of psychological awareness
i think you would agree i can distinguish myself from others ( whereas my mom cannot distiguish herself from me...as everything i do on life she does not agree with hurts her as if i were in her body doing these thing to HER)

plus, she doesn't feel bad about what she does to me. she doesn't have guilt about it.
but she does feel SHAME if others were to get down on her about this...she would feel shame...not guilt.
like when my parents divorced and she was the one to leave and then my dad raised me (basically), she was very upset with the fact that others thought she was a bad mom.
(which WOULD be very upsetting)...but i don't get the feeling that she felt actually guilty about it. not that i would want her to feel guilty...but you get my point, i hope.

she was the one who constantly told me, when i was a child ( and still even now ) that she is ugly and stupid and a bad mother. and i would always have to say " no, mom, you're pretty and smart and a good mother!" i can't even tell you how many countless times i had to be the one supporting her and making sure she felt she had self worth when i was a child.

then transference:
good example...i was on the bus going to school and the children on the bus wouldn't let me sit with them so i had to stand the whole way there.
i told this to my mom and all she said is , " i wonder why you have such little self worth?"
and i was just crushed by that. as i wracked my brain to figure out how this was MY fault. how i felt so badly about myself that somehow i brought it upon myself that other kids wouldn't let me sit with them.

and this sort of brainwashing and mindfuck then went on and on until, in the end, i thought perhaps i DID have low self esteem or something because each time she would ask me why i hate myself so much...i would cry. i think i was just crying because i was so confused. but she made me think i was as further proof of my lack of self esteem.

now , i know i never talk about the GOOD things my mother did. and perhaps when i can , someday i will go into that. just to at least remember and reminisce.
she wasn't a complete ogre. and she didn't do these things to me consciously or with any malice. i really don't think she has bad intentions. at least i cannot bring myself to think that way.
i think perhaps even now, she doesn't really intend to harm me. i don't see how she could think she ISN'T...but i think perhaps she genuinely believes that she has my best interests in mind. HER interests. as she and i are one in her mind. i think, in her mind, i am still an embryo in her body. i know that when i was a child i was her entire life. and the fact that i was smart and pretty validated her. she i don't think i got anything really harsh from her until i started finding my own way in the world. and when that didn't jive with who SHE is, she took that as a personal attack upon herself.

when i need help in any way...she is very sweet to me. because then she is the all powerful mom helping her sweet little baby girl. whenever she reminisces about us...it is ALWAYS about how sweet i smelled as a baby. and what a good baby i was. and how i would follow her everywhere and tug at her dress from below and look up to her...both figuratively and literally.
she plays this over and over in her mind and can't seem to come out of it.

whenever i was in trouble , like with my homework, she was always so patient with me and kind. or if i was nervous she always knew how to calm me down. i think this is because she felt she was stupid...so if i had troubles with math...she felt connected to me. and she was nervous...so if i was then she felt she could relate to me.
that is when she had compassion.

her parents were also narcissists. she vehemently disagrees with me because they are both dead now and she likes to idolize their memory.
but she used to hate them. she used to cry and cry about how her mother hated her and didn't approve of her.
why she cannot see this obvious correlation between she and her mom and she and i is beyond me.
her mother was a painter and her house was filled with her paintings. EVERYONE in the family had her paintings covering their walls. she was the queen painter and no one else could compare with her. i had artistic talent, but my grandmother would very much play this down. and then grandpa. yowzers. he was a professor at a prestigious college. all his sons went on to become doctors. i think that is why my mom went on to marry a professor of a prestigious college who is also a doctor.

that is another thing narcissists do...align themselves with people in positions of power...like doctors or reverends ( hello..my dad is a reverend ) so that they validate themselves through that alignment.

anything to do with power...positions of authority...it is never questioned. because narcissists do not think for themselves. they do not trust themselves to, as they have no self worth.

it's just too bad that my mom can't see this and so be able to break free.
it's too bad she, unwittingly, tried to pass this onto me.

it hurts me and make me sick whenever i see myself acting in a narcissitic way. because it's taking on the traits of "the enemy". as a victim, one never wants to see themselves grow into the attacker.

i'm glad i can realize this, as painful as it is, so i can nip any tendencies in the bud.

although my cam was started , not SOLELY for bad reasons. i think it definitely was a huge thing for me to validate myself and my existence. i mean, being in the music business, and especially where i was at with it at that time...being controlled by an EXTREMELY sadistic narcissist who owned the record label i was on....i was in total mindfuck land.
i was , in his mind, completely owned by him like a doll. and we were, in his mind, one. i completely validated him and when i tried to do my artistic vision, he just...was terribly sadistic. i won't even go there right now.

well, i just just majorly rebelling against being put in a box and owned like that...so i started my cam as i way to say I EXIST! I AM A MULTIFACETED PERSON! i thought that if i showed EVERYTHING i did and wrote down EVERYTHING i thought...that people would OBVIOUSLY see the "real me", the "true me", the WHOLE me.

this did not happen.

all i mostly became, is just a LARGER mirror for the narcissists of the world to gaze into and validate THEMselves.
my cam was not about me at all. it was about whoever was watching.

and still is , really.

and i guess i still continue with it, because that has, so far, been my role in this life. to be the mirror for narcissists. i know that role like the back of my hand.
pretty much most of my previous boyfriends have been narcissists. it's common. par for the course. for children of narcissists to just keep repeating that same pattern over and over. ( i can pretty much meld and mold myself to any situation and become whatever anyone wants me to be. i study my narcissists perpetrators like gods. almost as if i have a telepathic link to them and i , through sheer observation BECOME them. i sit and think...who are they and what must it be like to think like them and BE them? because i have had my boundries infringed upon in the most violent of ways...i become my attacker so that maybe through this i will get their validation OR at LEAST i will UNDERSTAND them. i'd make an excellent butler.)

but i would hope that is not the only reason i do this. i do get a huge amount of creative satisfaction out of it.
and i do get to meet interesting people, too. and so many things.
i realize what i do. and it's not compulsory for me anymore. it's just a thing i am very good at. in the end, it has brought me much knowledge of others and what it is like to be them and more compassion and empathy.

as an artist, how DO i get out of the loop of that? and should i?
what IS bad and good? what IS a good reason to do art and what is a bad reason?
why DO i create? and how much validation do i need for my creations?
what is normal? what is excessive?
what am i trying to do?

these are questions i ask myself now sometimes.

i mean, it's human nature to want to be validated to a certain degree.
just where is it that the line is crossed into something "bad"?

i think i know my own personal answer to that question.
and i'm pretty sure i remain on the line of "sanity" and "healthfulness".

still, i like to keep myself in check.
but i can ponder this too much sometimes and then THAT gets unhealthy.
sometimes you just have to do what you do and trust in yourself.
like i just make my pictures and put them up on the net because it DOES make me happy.
for whatever reason. good or bad.
and , as long as i;m happy, isn't that the point?

ok...now i'm wondering if i am being too "self absorbed" :)
am i?

am i being an unhealthy narcissist just by focusing on myself and these questions in this way?
my gut says no.

well, i don't know what more i can say on this subject right now.
it's all very interesting and all very exhausting.

i think i'm on an ok path.
i sure hope i am.

oh...and p.s. where is my dad in all this? he doesn't like conflict so he keeps to himself and remains as neutral as possible. which is a selfishness all in its own. neglect can sometimes be the most abusive of all. that's a whole different subject and story.